Medical Secretary - Oncology

Here at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust,

Our mission is: Providing high-quality, compassionate care for our communities

Our vision to 2030 is: To be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service

Job overview

We are recruiting for a Medical Secretary - Oncology who shares our vision to be trusted to provide consistently outstanding care and exemplary service to our patients.

At the Lister Hospital, we are dedicated to delivering excellence in our Cancer services. By joining our team, you'll be part of a supportive and collaborative environment where your contributions are valued and your professional growth is encouraged.

This role can be demanding and flexibility and dedication is a necessity. You must enjoy working within a multi-disciplinary team and have the ability to prioritise your work load by having excellent organisational and communication skills.

At the heart of everything we do are our core values: Include, Respect, and Improve. We encourage you to embrace these values throughout the recruitment process and in your role with us.

Main duties of the job

Liaise with all consultants in your area of responsibility to provide a full secretarial service, including all administrative duties and dealing with mail, this includes placing it in order of priority and acting on matters which can be dealt with without further reference.

Appropriately disseminate a variety of correspondence/documentation, some of which is highly confidential.

Type/amend clinical correspondence via Dit3, treatment summaries and annotations, ensuring compliance with typing turnaround time/targets and ensure that office instructions are followed.

Effectively monitor clinic templates, liaising with clinical team and administration staff to ensure clinic numbers are manageable. Escalating to the management team when appropriate.

Liaise with staff at all levels both internally and externally, answering written and verbal enquiries when necessary, taking action on all matters which can be dealt with without further reference.

Answer written and verbal enquiries from patients/relatives, referring enquiries to consultants only when necessary.

Deal with stressful phone calls which can be emotional and of a sensitive nature from relatives/patients.

Liaise with internal and external departments to arrange clinical investigations/procedures.

Working for our organisation

At East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, we are proud of the range of general and specialist services we provide and our 6,000 or so dedicated staff ensure our patients get the best care. Our ability to be flexible and innovative in the way in which we work and deliver our services to our catchment has never been more important than it is now.

We run the following hospitals:

• The Lister Hospital, Stevenage
• New Queen Elizabeth II (New QEII), Welwyn Garden City
• Hertford County, Hertford
• Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (MVCC), Northwood

We have ambitious plans to become an outstanding, patient-led Trust where dedicated staff provide high-quality, compassionate care to our patients. We continue to undergo significant transformation and our staff and patients are at the heart of delivering this ambitious agenda.

We are committed to a positive work life balance for our employees. This means that any employee is entitled to seek to work flexible working patterns and we are committed to listen and consider all requests. Such requests, of course, have to be made and considered formally, and will need to be balanced against service needs, but our starting point will always be to find ways to support making them happen.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification applicant pack for further detailed information regarding this role.

Person specification

Qualifications / Training

• Keyboard skills to RSA Level 2/3 or equivalent
• GCSE English & Mathematics grade 4-9/C and above

• Level 3 or equivalent qualification or experience in Administration or Customer Service

Experience

• Previous experience of using Microsoft Office Applications
• Knowledge or secretarial or administrative procedures and systems
• Previous experience of working in an office environment
• The ability to communicate sensitive information to colleagues, patients and relatives
• The ability to pay close attention to detail in written and electronic communication and information storage
• The ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to ensure high quality secretarial and administrative support
• Utilize personal problem solving skills to assist patients, carers and staff
• Able to organize, prioritize and adjust own workload in relation to the priorities of the department

• Previous experience of audio-typing
• Previous experience of working in the NHS
• Previous experience of using medical terminology

Skills

• Proficient with using Microsoft Office
• Ability to multitask
• Ability to meet deadlines

Knowledge

• Electronic Patient Record Systems

Our values

We want our staff to believe in, demonstrate and live our values in everything we do.

Include

We value the diversity and experience of our community colleagues and partners, creating relationships and climates that provide an opportunity to share, collaborate and grow together.

Respect

We create a safe environment where we are curious of the lived experience of others, seek out best practice and are open to listening and hearing new ideas.

Improve

We are committed to consistently delivering excellent services and continuously looking to improve through a creative workforce that feels empowered to act in service of our shared purpose.

Committed to our Community

In particular we encourage applications from candidates with disabilities, and candidates from Black, Asian and Minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds who are currently under-represented in various parts of our workforce .

We understand the importance of balancing work and home life. We are committed to support flexible working for our staff wherever possible and all our employees are given the opportunity to discuss potential for flexible working.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and achieved our status in 2019.

We will remove barriers that prospective candidates might face at any stage of our recruitment process. If you have a disability and would like the advert in an alternative format, or would like to talk about how we can adjust the interview process to best support you, please contact us by emailing [email protected]

We are also proud to support our UK armed forces by supporting Reservists, Cadet Instructors, Veterans and military spouses/partners into employment and offering supportive policies that value their contribution to the community and to our Trust.

Our approach is inclusive, recognizing diverse challenges and creating a supportive environment where carers feel valued.

When you apply...

Please note that vacancies may close prior to the advertised closing date in certain circumstances. Please ensure that you make your application as soon as possible.

All correspondence relating to vacancies will be via the e-mail address you have provided on your application form. Some servers automatically send e-mails to your junk mail so please check as well as your inbox.

As a publicly funded employer, we need to ensure we utilise our funds responsibly, this may mean we are unable to support sponsorship required to gain the right to work for particular positions. We strongly advise you to contact the line manager or a member of the Resourcing Team before applying to confirm if we will be able to support with sponsorship for that post.

King's Trust Support

Please contact Enquiries.H&[email protected] for support.

Secondments/Fixed term

Where a vacancy is advertised as a temporary position, the duration will be specified in the advert. If the vacancy becomes permanent towards the end of the specified duration, the successful applicant may not be required to re-apply and can be slotted into the role on a permanent basis if appropriate.

If you are an internal applicant applying for a temporary working arrangement, please see the attached notes on secondments.